Out of the Darkness
by purplehairedwonder
Summary: Comment fic: 5.04 AU. When Dean returns from the future, he finds Sam beaten nearly to death. With Sam in a coma he refuses to come out of, Dean must convince him that there is still something worth fighting for and that they are stronger together.


This was written for authoressnebula's prompt at the OhSam comment fic meme at LJ: "_I am ridiculously in love with Nickelback's new song "Lullaby" from their new album. I'm begging you. Any season, though I'm thinking of season 5, of course. Happy ending a must."_

Go check out the song because the lyrics are ridiculously perfect for the boys. I am now addicted after listening to it on repeat while writing this.

This is meant to go AU at the end of 5.04. Spoilers through 5.04 with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to 7.10. Story title comes from the song lyrics.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing you recognize.

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><p><strong>Out of the Darkness<strong>

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><p>Dean glanced up from Sam's still form at the sound of wing beats. Castiel stood in the doorway, his gaze locked on Sam, an unreadable expression on his face. Dean knew what his angel friend was looking at; the same thing Dean had been faced with since the doctors had let him see his brother. Sam, normally large and full of life, looked frail and small hooked up to myriad machines whose beeps were the only sign of life and a tube down his throat breathing for him. The ugly rainbow of mottled bruises and array of gashes covering his body were beginning to heal, but stuck out in harsh contrast to the bleach-white sheets of the hospital bed.<p>

Dean didn't bother checking the hallway to make sure Cas' sudden arrival hadn't been seen. Visiting hours were long over and the staff was giving Dean a wide berth since his less than peaceful insistence that he stay at his brother's side.

"How is he?" the angel asked.

"No change," Dean replied tiredly, scrubbing his face through his hands. "It's been a week and nothing."

"His injuries were quite severe."

Dean clenched his hands into fists. "And when I find the sons of bitches that did this…" He trailed off as he felt his blood boiling beneath his skin. Ever since finding his brother bound and beaten nearly to death in a Garber, Oklahoma motel room, Dean's emotions had fluctuated between terror at Sam's condition, fury at the bastards that had done this to him, and overwhelming weariness at, well, everything. When the doctor had found him after the countless hours of Sam's surgery, he'd been talking about fractured ribs, internal bleeding, and blood loss.

"_But he's going to be alright," Dean had said, arms crossed against his chest like a shield._

"_He's in a coma," the doctor replied and Dean felt the wind knocked from his lungs. "Besides the other injuries, Sam sustained serious head trauma during the attack. We've done everything we can…" _

"Now it's up to him," Dean murmured, looking back down at Sam.

"Dean?" Cas asked, stepping up closer to Sam's bedside.

"The doctors, when they told me Sam was in a coma, they said it was up to him now," Dean said, gaze stuck on the _too_ steady rise and fall of Sam's chest from the vent's artificial breathing. "Sam's a fighter, always has been, but…"

"But?"

Dean shook his head. The last words he'd said to Sam had been to tell him that they were weaker together and to pick a hemisphere. Sam had called him, fresh off a visit from Lucifer himself and was freaked the hell out. He'd asked for help, but for the first time in his life, Dean had turned his brother down.

"I don't know if he has anything to fight for anymore." His future self's words echoed accusingly through his head: _"Me and Sam? We haven't talked in… hell, five years." _ _My baby brother could die because I left him alone_, he thought morosely.

Cas cocked his head curiously. "I seem to recall you facing a similar situation not too long ago."

Dean flinched in spite of himself. The memory of Alastair's beating and the weeks in the hospital after still ached. And then there had been Zachariah's fun game of matching brotherly amnesia. Friggin' angels. "Yeah, about that…"

But Cas ignored him. "You needed a reason to fight again. Maybe your brother does as well."

Dean looked up with a frown. "I'm full up on alternate realities for the next, well, ever. Thanks."

"I do not have that kind of power, Dean. Even if that was what I meant."

Dean slumped back in his chair as the machines beeped on in the background. "Then what?"

"You need to convince him to keep fighting. That was what you meant to do when you called him, was it not?"

"Yeah," Dean acknowledged. "But talking to him might be a little hard. In case you haven't noticed Cas, Sam's in a fucking _coma_."

"He's not dead."

Dean gestured at the machines. "I can see that." _For now, anyway._ His stomach turned at the thought and he tried to shove it as far away as possible.

"As long as the soul remains in the body, there are ways to communicate."

Dean straightened at that. "What're you talking about?" And then it hit him. "You've appeared in my dreams before." The angel nodded and Dean felt something akin to hope growing cautiously in his gut. "You think you could get me in Sam's grapefruit?"

"I should still have that much power, yes. That is, if you believe you can help him."

Dean bristled slightly at that. Yeah he and Sam hadn't been seeing eye-to-eye for a while now, but Dean still had his big brother rights. If anyone was going to help Sam, it was him.

But then Dean remembered Sam at his bedside when he was in the hospital, at that point completely drowning in demon blood addiction but keeping up a steady stream of meaningless conversation in a soft voice in a vain attempt to keep Dean engaged. He remembered Sam's gentle prying to get him to eat, to speak, to _live_ again. And he remembered waking up to find Sam fast asleep in various contorted positions at his bedside that couldn't have been comfortable for a guy his size. But he'd never complained and refused to leave his brother's side despite numerous pleas from the nursing staff for him to go home and get some rest. He'd been a constant presence, but Dean had been caught too far into his own despair to appreciate it.

Dean shook his head slightly. Well, he could appreciate it now. And he was going to repay the favor and sure as hell not make the same mistake his future self had. He refused to let their brotherhood turn into… _that_. He looked back up at Castiel.

"I'll do it," he said. He opened his mouth to ask when, but there was suddenly a finger on his forehead and then darkness.

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><p>Dean blinked and found himself standing at the edge of a park. He spun around in confusion, wondering where <em>this<em> had come from until he noticed the lone shaggy-headed figure sitting on a park bench near the playground, watching shadowy children laughing and screeching happily as they played.

Dean made his way over to the bench, and Sam gave no indication he knew Dean was there as he sat down. Dean scanned the area and realized that it looked familiar.

"This is the park near Bobby's," he said.

Sam nodded. "I remember Bobby dropping me off here when he was supposed to take you shooting." He pointed past the playground to a set of figures playing catch in the field.

Dean remembered that too, his gaze following Sam's finger to a ten-year-old Dean and slightly younger-looking Bobby. "But we played catch instead."

"I was so excited to play with other kids that I didn't even notice you and Bobby until you came back an hour later. You were never more than a hundred yards away." There was a wistful smile on his face.

Dean looked back to the playground where one of the shadowy figures took on a more distinct appearance: six year old Sam hanging off the monkey bars and laughing. The picture unexpectedly made something inside his chest ache.

"You were supposed to be a regular kid back then." Sam snorted softly but didn't say anything, eyes still roaming over the park. "Dad was furious," Dean said after a while. "But Bobby didn't care."

"He wanted you to be a regular kid, too," Sam replied softly.

Dean turned to really look at his brother. He looked tired and like he'd lost weight. And he looked sad. "Why are we here, Sam?" he asked.

"Why are _you_ here, Dean?" Sam retorted, finally looking at Dean.

"Looking for you, dumbass," he replied.

"Why?"

The question was simple, spoken neutrally, but Dean couldn't help but hear the accusation in it. _You told me to pick a hemisphere so why would you be looking for me?_

"Because you're stuck in a coma out in the real world. And you make for terrible conversation when you're unconscious—not that you're much better when you're awake, but I'll take what I can get," Dean replied, failing brilliantly to form a joking smile.

"I know."

Dean blinked at that. "What, that you make terrible conversation?"

Sam shook his head but didn't rise to the bait. "That I'm in a coma."

"You know," Dean said flatly.

"Yeah."

Dean frowned and pushed himself to his feet. He moved to hover over his sitting brother. If he needed to pull rank and bully his little brother back into consciousness, he'd do it. "And it didn't occur to you that you should wake up?"

"It did."

Dean crossed his arms. "What?"

Sam finally looked up at Dean. "It occurred to me," he said simply. "And I decided not to."

"What the hell does that mean?" Dean demanded, realizing with some alarm that he couldn't read the look crossing his brother's face. There'd been a time that he could read Sam like an open book; he'd been fluent in Sam Winchester since the kid was a few months old. But at that moment, Dean understood just how far they'd drifted apart and it scared the hell out of him.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"For what?" Sam just shook his head. "Sam, _for what_?"

And then the world _shifted_.

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><p>Dean turned around in a circle and frowned. He was standing in the motel room he'd found Sam in. After Zachariah's adventure, Dean had tried calling Sam to meet up, but his calls had repeatedly gone to voicemail. Worried about what Sam might do—or what might happen to him, trouble magnet that he was—with Lucifer aiming to jump his bones and no one to watch his six, Dean had called Bobby, who had directed him to Garber. Once there, Dean had narrowed his search down to the Great Plains Motel, which had room 113 rented to a Keith Moon.<p>

When he'd found the room, the blinds had been drawn and furniture shoved around haphazardly. There'd been dark stains on the floor—blood—that led to the bed where Sam lay unconscious. That was probably a mercy. He was gagged, his arms and legs were tied to the bed frame, and his wrists were chaffed raw. His face was a mess of bruises and swelling. His t-shirt and jeans were in bloody tatters, like fabric and skin alike had been shredded by a blade. Beneath the remnants of Sam's clothes and the thick layer of dried crimson staining his skin, Dean had seen the ugly purples and blacks of fresh bruises up and down his ribs in lines reminiscent of a baseball bat.

Dean tried unsuccessfully to push the image from his mind.

Two figures materialized in the shadows of the room. Sam stood facing another man that Dean didn't recognize. And Sam looked terrified.

"_What do you want with me?" _he demanded.

"_Thanks to you, I walk the earth," _the other man said gently, even affectionately. _"I want to give you a gift. I want to give you everything."_

"_I don't want anything from you," _Sam growled.

And Dean got it. "Is that…?"

"Lucifer, yes." Dean started and looked over to see the Sam from the park standing next to him, watching the scene play out, features carefully neutral. "You know he came as Jess first," he continued.

The words came as a punch to the gut, but Sam kept speaking, voice straining against grief. "And I knew she couldn't be real. I knew she was dead and that I was dreaming, but I missed her so damn much. And there she was, as beautiful as the last day I saw her. And her voice…" Sam shook his head, voice breaking. "Even if it was only for a few minutes, I wanted to believe."

"But it was a lie."

Sam nodded jerkily. "It was a lie from the Prince of Lies himself." And he focused back on the scene, leaving Dean little choice but to do the same; to see what Sam was wallowing in while stuck in his coma.

"_Why do you think you were in that chapel? You're the one, Sam. You're my vessel—my true vessel."_

Horror dawned on Sam's face matching what Dean felt rising in his gut. _"No."_

"_Yes," _the Devil said simply.

"_No. That'll never happen." _Distance between them or not, Dean recognized his how brother sounded when he was near tears.

"_I'm sorry, but it will. I will find you. And when I do, you will let me in. I'm sure of it."_

Sam straightened at that. _"You need my consent."_

"_Of course. I'm an angel."_ Lucifer almost sounded amused, like Sam was a favorite pet that had done something cute.

New determination crossed Sam's face at that, stubbornness that Dean knew all too well. _"I will kill myself before letting you in."_

Dean's stomach tightened at the words, mind briefly going back to a rainy night in South Dakota…

"_I'll just bring you back." _Those few words completely deflated Sam and pulled Dean from his reverie. Lucifer paused, looking genuinely sad before speaking again. _"Sam, my heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders, what you've done, what you still have to do. It is more than anyone could bear." _Sam seemed to be moving closer and closer to breaking down completely as the Devil spoke._ "If there was some other way...but there isn't. I will never lie to you. I will never trick you. But you will say yes to me."_

The two figures dissipated and Dean glanced at Sam, whose jaw was clenched tight. "He's not what you'd expect, is he?" Sam asked tightly.

"No. He's not." It was too much like Lucifer wearing Sam's skin in the future—voice and posture and facial expressions all completely foreign on Sam—that the air suddenly seemed too thin and Dean felt dizzy.

"I fled right after that," Sam said. "And I called you."

Right, because Dean needed to feel even guiltier for turning him down. "Sam—"

But Sam turned to look at him once more, still looking sad and tired. And once more Dean wondered what would have tipped future Sam off the edge to say yes to the Devil. Had his future brother been this weary and broken?

"Why are you here, Dean?" he asked again.

"To bring you back," Dean told him. "I was wrong when you called. We're not stronger apart and I know that now. I need you to wake up, Sammy."

But Sam shook his head. "I can't."

Dean blinked. "I bare my soul to you like a freaking girl and you tell me you _can't_?"

Sam gave him one of those damn puppy dog looks he'd never been able to resist, whether at seven or twenty-seven. "I'm sorry, Dean."

Shift.

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><p>Dean was standing in the motel room again, only this time Sam sat on the edge of his bed with his face in his hands and shaggy hair forming a curtain between Dean and his brother. Sam's duffel was at his feet and his silent phone next to him. Sam's shoulders were shaking.<p>

"I came back here after…" Sam said from Dean's left.

"After I hung up on you," Dean finished for him.

Sam shrugged. "I didn't know where else to go. It's not like I could bring the Devil to Bobby's door, so I turned around and came back."

Dean took a breath. This wasn't getting him any closer to figuring out why Sam refused to wake up. But before he could say anything, the door burst open and two men stormed in. One had a gun and the other a baseball bat. Sam jumped to his feet.

When the men stepped into the light, Dean inhaled sharply. He knew them. Tim and Reggie had worked some jobs with Dad back in the day. Dean had even tagged along on a few of them. They were good hunters, good people. So what was going on? Reggie shut the door behind them and moved in on Sam, who had started backing up.

"_We told you we'd be back, Sam," _Tim said, training his gun at Sam's chest.

"_I told you I'd be here," _Sam retorted.

"_Well I guess we're all men of our words, then,"_ Tim said. _"Though of the three of us, I'm thinking the one who started the apocalypse doesn't rank too high on the trust scale."_

"What—" Dean started.

"They came into the bar I was working at," Sam told him. "They weren't really happy when I wouldn't work a job with them. Demons told them what I'd done and they were looking for some payback."

Dean forced his brain to skip past the part where Sam—aspiring lawyer and Stanford dropout Sam—was working at a bar. "What happened?"

"They threatened a girl I worked with and poured demon blood in my mouth," Sam said. His voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "I spit it out and took them down, but they weren't done."

"And they found you."

Sam nodded as Tim and Reggie circled Sam, who had his eye on the gun leveled at him. Reggie's movement was fast and Sam had no chance to react as the older hunter leapt forward and swung the bat at Sam's midsection.

Sam went down in a heap and the two hunters were on him in an instant. Sam curled up as tightly as he could as blows from boots and a bat rained down like a monsoon of pain. Dean thought he heard a crack or two in the cacophony. Sam cried out before going limp. Tim and Reggie grabbed Sam underneath the arms and hauled the dazed hunter to the bed, where they made quick work of tying him down to the bedframe. Sam came to just as Reggie was tying the gag around his mouth and Tim was trading his handgun for a hunting knife.

Dean's stomach turned, remembering the state he'd found his brother in. Instead of watching the torture—though he couldn't tune out Sam's muffled moans and cries as the hunters worked him over—he watched the version of his brother next to him. Sam seemed remarkably calm about the whole thing, which was all kinds of wrong.

"You didn't fight back." Dean said at last, wincing as Sam cried out against the gag. "You could have taken both of them. Hell, you _did_."

Sam shrugged. "I know. But I didn't see the point."

And there it was—the reason Sam wasn't willing to wake up even though his life was literally in his own hands now.

"What are you talking about?"

"It was only as much as I deserved," Sam replied. "Hell, I deserve a lot worse for what I've done—to the world, to _you_."

Dean could feel his brother's fingers on his throat all over again and he shut his eyes against the memory. When he opened them again, Sam was looking at him knowingly. The scent of blood was wafting through the dream motel room, making Dean feel doubly ill.

"Sammy—"

Sam shook his head and looked back at the hunters that were systematically beating him to death. "I thought about killing myself, you know." Dean's blood ran cold at the words coming so matter-of-factly from his brother's mouth. He knew Sam felt guilty, but this? This was far worse than Dean could have imagined. "But you heard what Lucifer said. I think part of me wanted to let Tim and Reggie do it, to call his bluff, you know?"

"Sam, killing yourself isn't going to solve a damn thing," Dean told him angrily.

"I know. I don't doubt what he told me. But I don't think Tim and Reggie got that far, anyway."

Dean grabbed his brother by the shoulders and forced his brother to look at him. "Dammit Sam, that's not what I mean. Killing yourself? That's giving up. Fuck. You screwed up, big deal. So did I. This whole apocalypse? Half of it's on me. But I'm going to fight the damn thing. That's what we do—we screw it up and then we _fix_ it."

Sam gave Dean an apathetic shrug. "I think I'm past the point of being able to fix things, Dean."

Dean stepped back from his brother and rubbed a hand over his face. It was like the man standing in front of him was a total stranger. But Cas' words sprang unbidden to mind: _"You needed a reason to fight again. Maybe your brother does as well."_ Sam seemed to be caught up in the wave of helplessness that Dean had nearly drowned in a few months before. He couldn't help his brother when he'd gotten demon claws in him, but he would be damned if he wasn't going to throw a lifeline to him now.

"Sam—"

"It's okay, Dean. I'm not going to off myself. I know it won't solve anything. You don't have to worry about that."

"Then why won't you wake up?"

Sam gave him a pitying smile that made Dean simultaneously want to punch his brother in the face and curl up in the corner and cry. If he never saw that look on his brother's face again it would be too soon. "I realized something."

"What?"

"Here," he said, gesturing to the motel room, "in my head, I'm the least dangerous to anybody."

Dean's mouth fell agape at that. "What the hell does that mean?"

"If I die, Lucifer will just bring me back. If I'm alive and out there, he'll follow me wherever I go and hound me until I say yes. I can't risk that." Sam shrugged and dropped into the chair Tim had shoved aside when he jumped at Sam's prone form. "Look, here, it's an in between. I'm alive so he can't do anything to me, but I can't say yes when I'm not conscious." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's better like this."

Dean shook his head, thinking back to the last room. "Doesn't Lucifer come to you in your sleep?" Sam nodded. "Then can't he find you here?"

Sam shrugged. "He can. He has."

"He has?" The very thought made Dean's skin crawl.

"Yeah. But if he doesn't know where I am, he can't find me to make me say yes. And here, it's my world. I can protect myself here."

"Until you wither and die and Lucifer brings you back anyway," Dean growled.

"That will take years," Sam replied simply. "I trust you and Cas and Bobby to figure it out before then."

Dean's mouth moved but no sound came out. He couldn't believe the thought that Sam had put into this. He couldn't believe he could follow his brother's logic—and couldn't believe what a dense ass such a smart guy could be.

"You selfish son of a bitch."

Sam looked genuinely startled by that, which Dean took as a plus. Sam had been a little too in control until now. "You're just going to set the Devil free and sit back and let the rest of us figure it out?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm too much of a liability. Better to take me out of the equation all together. Satan doesn't get his true vessel and there's a weakness you can exploit."

"What, are you planning on saying yes?"

Sam frowned. "No, of course not."

"Then the Devil still doesn't get his vessel and you're not a liability. Fuck Sam, you're the second best hunter on the planet." Sam snorted derisively, but Dean went on. "You're my brother. And I can't do it without you."

Sam shrugged, though he looked decidedly less certain than a few minutes ago. "Yes you can."

"_Yeah, but I don't want to,"_ Dean'd said once, another lifetime ago.

This time was different. He sure as hell wasn't going to let the future Zachariah had shown him come to pass. And he refused to live in a world where his brother's rightful place was in a coma so he couldn't _hurt_ anybody. Bullshit.

"No, I can't," Dean told him, forcing Sam to meet his eyes. "I was wrong before and you're wrong now. Maybe we are each other's Achilles heel. Maybe they'll find a way to use us against each other, I don't know."

He could see Sam wavering, could see the uncertainty and the essential _little brother_ lurking just below the surface. It'd been so long since Sam could afford to be a little brother, Dean realized with a jolt. He'd had to grow up quickly after Dean's deal and then the aftermath of him going to Hell. By the time Dean had come back, Sam had grown up far too fast and broken in ways they were both still trying to understand.

And if Dean wanted his brother to trust him and to fight alongside him, he was going to have to put his money where his mouth was. He was going to have to be the big brother Sam needed now.

"I just know we're all we've got," he said. "More than that, we keep each other human."

Sam stared at him for a long while, searching for something in Dean's face—maybe a lie, maybe a hint of doubt, or maybe a hint of truth. And Dean let him. He'd wait as long as he had to.

And then the world shifted again and Dean was spinning.

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><p>Dean gasped and jerked, only to find a hand on his chest holding him down. He looked up to see Castiel hovering in front of him, looking concerned in his own awkward angel way.<p>

"Dean?" he asked. "Did it work?"

But Dean peered around Cas' shoulder to see Sam's eyes flicker open. He immediately bucked and threw his hands to the tube in his throat, and alarms went off. Dean was on his feet in an instant, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. Cas disappeared as nurses rushed into the room. But in the panic, Sam's eyes found Dean's and recognition flashed in them.

"Easy, Sammy. You're in the hospital. The vent's still breathing for you. Let the nurses help you," he told his brother in his best _I'm-the-big-brother-trust-me_ voice. Sam seemed to relax at the words as the nurses ushered Dean out of the room.

And when the nurse came to let Dean back into the room, she told him Sam was groggy and would probably be out of it for some time, but he was going to be fine.

"Your brother's a fighter," she told him with a smile.

"Yeah."

Sam was propped upright when Dean walked back into the room. Dean sat down at his brother's side.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Sam rasped out in a weak reply.

They looked at each other, silent acknowledgment passing between them.

_Thank you for coming for me._

_Thank you for coming back._

_I'm not giving up._

_I won't let you, bitch._

_Such a jerk._

"Get some rest, kiddo," Dean said at last. "I'll be here when you wake up."

Sam yawned and quickly drifted off to sleep, the pain meds pulling him under. And as he watched his little brother, Dean thought that maybe, just maybe, they could fight this destiny crap after all.

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><p><em>- finis -<em>


End file.
